Surge in pleas for help to homeless charity

The number of people at risk of homelessness and seeking information from Focus Ireland soared by 76% last year, according to the organisation’s annual report. 

It reveals that 4,400 people who were either homeless or at risk of losing their home contacted the charity last year, up from 2,500 in 2012.

Focus Ireland said that while it did expand its operations last year, it did so only to meet demand, amid a growing social housing crisis and fears of a wave of ‘new homeless’ cases sparked by house repossessions.

Acting CEO Mark Byrne said the Government needed to work on immediate solutions and in the longer term to ease the crisis.

He said tracking and regulation of rental markets, changes to the rate of rental supplements, and immediate commencement of building social housing units were all needed.

He added that there was “potential for repeated intergenerational homeless cycles” in the future, and warned that, unlike past years, in which factors such as addiction or mental health issues contributed towards people becoming homeless, “financial and economic circumstances” are now the main driver in many cases.

Ger Spillane, regional manager of the Cork and Limerick offices of Focus Ireland, said he was aware of cases in which families were living in cars and other instances where teenagers were being placed in foster care because of a lack of suitable, family-orientated emergency accommodation.

He also warned that there could be “huge social consequences in years to come through children growing up amid massive uncertainty over where they live and often having to endure a fractious domestic life or family breakdown.

The charity operates centres in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo, and Kilkenny and in some areas has opened up outreach services.

Last year, Focus Ireland opened a new Cork office. The average number of people visiting per month rose from 12 in 2012 to 40 by February of last year and now stands at 100.

In Co Cork, outreach services are now running in Bandon and Macroom, and Mr Spillane said that, ultimately, people struggling to secure accommodation typically exhaust all other avenues before moving to larger urban areas, where the accommodation situation is even more acute.

In Cork, he said, the lack of family emergency accommodation meant homeless families were broken up, with mothers and children under 12 going to one centre and fathers going to another, while teenage boys could end up in emergency foster care or a Garda station because of a lack of suitable accommodation.

“We have not seen families living in hotels [in Cork] but it is only a matter of time before that happens,” he said. “You have two or three families staying in one apartment — it is like tenement stuff.”

Asked about the profile of clients, Mr Spillane said: “It is not your ‘typical’ homeless person. It is people who have jobs and cannot keep up with mortgage repayments.”